Heartbeat
by A-to-Q
Summary: Those fleeting days went by, and no one cared. Shintaro x Ayano


**I caught the flu. Sneeze.**

* * *

Today, the teacher used a childish method to teach the class about how sound travels through vibrations. It was a budget school, but...

"Using childhood nostalgia to get our attention... How pathetic."

The teacher had brought in a set of paper cup telephones, the kind that children would make and play with. How one would play the game would be to hold the cups apart from each other, so that the string in between became taut. Then, one person would speak into the cup while the other would listen, using their cup as an earpiece. The cycle would then repeat and a conversation would be held via that method.

The teacher wanted them to try it out, in pairs, with the person they were sitting next to. Tateyama Ayano, being seated right next to the window, had to pair up with Kisaragi Shintaro, the class downer. Ayano was the klutzy, cheerful girl that everyone liked, while Shintaro on the other hand was the lone wolf of the class who didn't have any friends, nor enemies. However, Ayano seemed so much closer to Shintaro than he was to anyone else in the class.

"Come on, Shintaro-kun! We have to try it out!"

"Hmm."

Shintaro's eyes didn't leave the book he was staring at. Although, he wasn't exactly staring at the book either. His eyes showed a complete sense of boredom and arrogance, as though he knew everything in the world and didn't need to do anything else anymore. Ayano continued to pester Shintaro and get him to try it out, but eventually, the girl sitting in front of Ayano offered to try it out with her instead, as it was certain that Shintaro wouldn't budge.

With a sigh, Ayano tried out the paper cup telephone with that girl instead, and had quite some fun with it, as the words had become slightly jumbled up, and sometimes came out sounding like a complete mess.

"Hmm... Pirate... playing balls...?"

"Eh? No! I said Pirate laying hall!"

The two girls laughed slightly, then passed the set to the next pair. Though Ayano was happy that she was able to try it out, she felt sad for Shintaro who didn't. Even at the end of the lessons for the day, Shintaro still wasn't paying attention, and was off in his own world somewhere.

"Shintaro-kun? Shintaro-kun, are you listening?"

"Hmm?"

Shintaro glanced up sideways at Ayano, who just came back into the classroom. She had a can of coffee in her hands, which he recognised to be a brand that the vending machine downstairs sold.

"Even if you're the daughter of a teacher here, you shouldn't break the school rules by bring drinks to class."

"Hehe, it's alright! It's okay so long as I don't spill anything right? And I don't think you'll rat me out to any of the teachers either, would you Shintaro-kun?"

"Hmph."

Shintaro's gaze fell back to the book he seemed to be reading. But then again, he had been reading that same page over and over again for a while now. Ayano stared at Shintaro for a while before turning away to observe the rest of the classroom. Everyone else had either gone home, or went for their co-curricular activities already. Shintaro and herself were the only people in the class that belonged to the 'go-home club'.

Ayano noticed something on the teacher's desk, and went over. Shintaro's eyes remained glued to those two pages of the textbook. On the table was the set of paper cup telephones their science teacher had brought in earlier in the day.

"I guess he forgot to take it back."

Ayano wasn't talking to anyone in particular, though it seemed to be directed at Shintaro, who wasn't paying attention. She picked it up, and took a closer look at the paper cup telephones. She wasn't able to look carefully during class, but now that she could go at her own time and pacing, she looked at every little detail the paper cup telephones had, from the floral pattern on the cups, so the type of string the teacher had used.

Ayano hadn't thought about it before, but now that she realised this small, insignificant fact, she was rather amazed. As the phone could only be used by two people at any time, and since one needed to talk directly into the cup, and place the cup directly on their ear in order to have a conversation, it was like for just that moment, those two people shared a special bond, as though the only sounds in the world were each other's voices. Also, a normal phone could just be used by one person, such as playing a game or typing a memo, but the paper cup phones needed two people to use it, for it to be functional. However, there was also a way for someone to use it on their own...

Ayano placed one cup at her ear, and another over her chest, and listened.

This simple action seemed to have caught Shintaro's attention.

"What are you doing?"

He walked over.

"I'm listening to my heartbeat."

"Hmm."

A few more seconds passed before any more conversation was made.

"Let me hear."

"What?"

"I said, let me hear."

"Um, sure!"

Ayano passed the whole set to Shintaro, but he only glanced at her with a look of disdain.

"Are you really that mentally challenged that I need to rephrase a simple sentence like that?"

"Eh?"

"I meant, 'Pass me the cup for the ear, and let me listen'."

"O-Oh, I'm sorry~ I'm bad in the head after all! You should know better than to assume that I can understand what you're saying, oh-great-genius-Shintaro-kun."

"Hmph."

Shintaro placed the cup she passed to him on his ear, while Ayano placed the other cup back onto her chest.

_Ba-dump._

_Ba-dump._

"It's a nice sound."

"Really? I thought it was just my imagination that I could hear my heartbeat."

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course you can hear your heartbeat. Every living being has a heartbeat."

"I guess you're right, Shintaro-kun~"

"... I'm going home."

Shintaro set the cup back down on the table, and headed back to his desk.

"So soon? Let me walk with you!"

Ayano set the other cup down as well, packed her bag, and chased after Shintaro who had already left the classroom.

"Geez! I already told you that I want to walk with you!"

"You said you only wanted to walk with me. You didn't say you wanted me to wait for you."

"No need to take my words so literally, right?"

Walking along together on the pavement, the two looked like a high school couple to those who didn't know them well. Their way back was filled with one-sided conversation, with Ayano talking non-stop to Shintaro, who only gave a 'hmm' or 'I see' every now and then. Finally, it was time for them to part ways.

"See you tomorrow at school, Shintaro-kun!"

"Yeah."

Just as Ayano was about to leave, Shintaro spoke again.

"Say, let me hear your heartbeat again someday. It's a pretty nice sound. Almost like a song in itself."

Ayano initially didn't know how to reply to such a weird request, but eventually just gave one of her usual cheery smiles, and replied to him.

"It'll all depend on whether I'm still alive or not~ Like you said, only living beings have a heartbeat. If you make me wait too long, you might never get to hear it again! So then, bye!"

The way Ayano phrased it made it sound as though it was an indirect confession, and that she wanted Shintaro to be her boyfriend. Though, she simply just found the situation to be kind of awkward and blurted out whatever came to her mind to end the silence. She clutched the straps of her school bag as she made her way home, and thought to herself.

'I hope I didn't give Shintaro-kun the wrong idea... That would be so embarrassing...!'

And so, time passed.

Those fleeting days went by, and no one cared.

"I'm sorry, Shintaro-kun. I might not be able to let you hear that sound anymore."

As abrupt as Shintaro was when he asked to listen to her heartbeat, her life too had abruptly ended.

* * *

**I apologise for the sudden ending. I really couldn't think of anything else.**

**I initially wanted to write another SetoMary story, but it got really long-winded, and so I ended up writing something for ShinAyano instead.**

**I want to try writing a story for Kano and Kido one day.**


End file.
